Dormant
by BitterPotato00
Summary: The Lake of Rage is rampaging once again-not with Gyarados, but with the discovery of two dead children.


She stares at the device in her hand, but it remains dormant. She longs for the irritating ring, the slight vibration in her hand, anything, but her hope slowly fades as the clock ticks on. She waits for her son.

Selenium knows that she's wasting her time. There are things to be done around the house; it has been neglected to near disrepair in the recent months. She remains several classes from her once-desired degree, but the copious books in the study gather dust anyway. The world exists outside, brutally barreling through the days and weeks and months that he should've been there for-but has missed, and will miss now. Forever.

Downstairs, her remaining Pokémon sleep as soundly as they can. They feel the emptiness of the massive house as much as the young woman does. They miss their owner as Selene misses her son. He isn't gone alone, though. Found by his side are several other of the house Pokémon. They have been there from his birth, and they were with him until his death. Selene can't figure out if that comforts her or makes her nauseous.

The pokegear that carries the carcass of the woman's hope once delivered the crippling blow to her life. Memories of the call and fragments of the calm, solemn voice pierce her daily, during her attempt of a daily routine to her silent lunch to now. She hates it. She hates the device with every fiber of her being. The cool metal scorches her skin and the bright screen breeches into her vision. It melds into her eyes and remains inescapable, whether she closes them or not. It delights in taunting her with unimportant alerts. Any other sort of contact through it-worried relatives to bank informants-is worthless. It is nearly worthless, but she clings to it. It threw her down the deepest, darkest pit, but she still believes that it is the key to pull her out into the fresh air, into contact with the boy she most dearly prays for.

When the world becomes too much, Selene calls him to hear his voicemail. It's a simple hello, but it's sheer music to her ears. It is as fleeting and promising as an illusion. Hearing his voice, the familiar accent and lifts and accentuations to his particular talk, puts her into a calm of massive power and massive deceit. The pokegear belonging to her son also found it's end at the bottom of the Lake of Rage.

The story was warped and impossible to her panicked ears.

Her son was at the lake, they said.

He was fighting somebody, they said.

He fell through and drowned, they said.

And do you know this other young man?they asked.

Gold was with another boy. Selene was apathetic at first-how could she focus on anybody but Gold? But she listened to the coroner's report. She envisioned the other boy's red hair and skinny build, soon weeping for him as well. She grieved for the young man's family-but she then learned that he had none. Her baby wasn't alone, and the boy who died with him seemed more vulnerable than she could've ever imagined.

Another punch in the gut was that it was just too late. Rescuers rushed to the rampaging lake and retrieved the boys' limp bodies, utilizing every resuscitation technique in the book to bring them back, but there was nothing they could do.

Selene lost one son and buried two boys. She showed her Beloved Unknown the same care as her own flesh and blood; two heads of hair are smoothed, two foreheads are kissed, and two sets of hands are lightly stroked. They couldn't identify the young man, and he was on his way to the crematorium before Selene stepped in. She had the money. She had the means. She had the duty to show the strange child the respect he deserved, the respect he didn't receive in life. He wasn't supposed to be alone like this.

The simple funeral gathered an extravagant number of people. Her baby affected strangers by the dozens; some told of his helpfulness, others complained of his pushiness, but all agreed that Gold had a heart are pure as his namesake.

Nothing was said about the other boy. Nobody ever claimed guardianship nor kin. Among all the tearful anecdotes and mournful church hymns, those cold facts hit Selene the hardest. Never before did she think a life could be extinguished so quietly or flushed away with such a sense of...coldness. She likes to imagine that she lessened the world's unfairness towards the young man by the simple act of burial. Selene doesn't want to imagine his life leading to the lake discovery.

Life at the center of disaster was nothing compared to life after all was said and done. It was back to normal for the woman whose normal was permanently shattered by loss. She was alone to pick up the countless pieces and continue forward, but had lost all sense of direction. Days of fake progress gave way to genuine nights of thought and regret; it was when Selene sat on her bed with the cursed device in her hand and recounted her monumental failures as a mother. She wasn't there for Gold. She didn't care enough to call. She let him fall through the cracks of a dark, nasty, evil world: a world she should've protected him from but instead pushed him straight into.

She glances at the clock on the bedside table. 6:47, it blared. Selene closes her heavy eyes and runs her hands through her graying hair. It is the start of a new day.


End file.
